Christians know, or should know, that the God of the Bible is a God of love. The Christian who does not accept or believe this fact does not know the Bible. How can one be a real Christian if you have no knowledge about the heart and nature of real Christianity?
In fact, no one with a basic knowledge of the Bible can deny that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a God of love. It can be read in John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (NIV) (Emphasis added).
The word ‘world’ includes all humanity and does not exclude sinners. That is why Jesus said in Mark 2:17:
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (NKJ). (See also Matthew 9:12 and Luke 5:31 in this regard.)
God sent Jesus because of His love for people:
"For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:3, 4 (NKJ)
This love of God and His patience with sinful humankind are further illustrated in 2 Peter 3:9:
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (NKJ)
God’s love for man is further confirmed in Ezekiel 18:23. He asks:
“Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” (KJV)
God loves His creation - humankind - who fell into the power of sin through disobedience. With endless patience, through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the nation of Israel, He worked his plan of salvation for every person through Jesus Christ. No man on earth deserves to be saved, because all have sinned. He (God) first loved us, as we read in 1 John 4:19:
“We love him, because he first loved us.” (KJV)
Is there any proof that He first loved us? We discover this in 1 John 4:10:
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (KJV).
Proof of His love is also found in Romans 5:8:
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (NKJ) (Emphasis added).
According to the Bible in 1 John 4:8, God is love: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” and 1 John 4:16: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” (Emphasis added). One can therefore say, with respect to Him, that God is unable to do anything that is unkind or unloving. All His acts and everything He does, originate in love, are benevolent and to the ultimate good of man. Benevolence is a disposition to do good for the sake of doing good and not for any selfish gain whatsoever. Any deed or action that is not benevolent, or to the ultimate good of man, is not of God, but of Satan or man. Even God’s judgments are benevolent and for the ultimate good of man. Sometimes His actions against people are to their advantage in that they prevent them from bringing a greater judgment upon themselves. Pain and suffering on earth are not necessarily God’s judgments. Most of this is the result of man’s sin (his own and others’).
The essence of God’s law is love because He is love. You must love God above all, and love your neighbour as yourself. God’s law is found in Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:37-39:
“‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (NKJ).
Obedience to the God of the Bible means to love and not harm people; Leviticus 19:18:
"but you shall love your neighbor as yourself." (See also Deuteronomy 6:5, Mark 12:30-31 and Luke 10:27)
Our behaviour (all our actions) must, therefore, always be benevolent and to the honour of God and the benefit of His creation, including our neighbour. Benevolent behaviour towards your neighbour means that you do everything possible (in the circumstances) to his/her benefit, and nothing to his/her detriment. It is obvious that if all people always did that, no one would ever be harmed, and God would always be honoured. How can the motive for such a law be anything but love?
This love of God is not a feeling or an emotion; it is a choice to act with benevolence in all circumstances, including in interaction with people you do not like, and our enemies. This is God’s command in his Word. In Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27 God says:
“Love your enemies” (NKJ)
And in Proverbs 25:21:
“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink;” (NKJ).
In Romans 12:14 the command is:
“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” (NKJ).
1 Peter 3:9 concurs:
“Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing;” (KJV).
Everyone knows, however, that not all ‘Christians’ behave in a benevolent manner. To the contrary, very few Christians behave in this way. The reader must realise that there are different definitions of Christianity. A biblical definition for a Christian is someone who, because of the salvation in Christ, is completely dedicated to God, denies himself, follows Christ and is willing to deny himself every day (Luke 9:23). It is someone who is dead to the world and sin, but lives for Christ (Romans 6:2-14) who, as a child of God, is led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14); and in whose heart the love of God has been poured out (Romans 5:5). (See also Appendix B).
It is important to realise that in this process of salvation, God gets all the honour because it is His work. Even the ability to believe and to choose is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). God Himself enables people to dedicate themselves completely to Him (John 15:5). No good works can save a person, but if your dedication (salvation) does not lead to good works, your dedication cannot be real.
In some texts in the Bible, it seems as if God hates people. An example is found in Malachi 1:2-3, where God says: “I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau.” The word hated is, however, used in the sense of ‘I have a lower regard for the one’ or ‘I love the one less than the other’. It is understandable that God loved Jacob more because He is omniscient, and He always knew that Esau would be His enemy. Enemy is also a word that can be derived from the original word that is here rendered as ‘hated’. According to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, the word was also used in Old Testament times “In the case of two wives in a family, in which one was preferred over the other, it may be said that one was loved and the other ‘hated’.”
Another example is where Jesus, in Luke 14:26, says:
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
It is obvious that the word rendered as ‘hate’ in this instance cannot mean lack of love, because it is the same Jesus who repeatedly taught people to love their neighbour, even their enemy, as they love themselves. You must love God more than you love yourself. According to The New Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Words, the meaning of the word rendered ‘hate’ is also to ‘love less’.
It is clear that God loves all people, and that is not because it is deserved, but because He is love. It is His nature. God's wrath can, however, be provoked when his love is persistently rejected.